Thousands of Black Holes at the Center of Our Galaxy

Thousands of Black Holes at the Center of Our Galaxy

Astronomers just announced that the center of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, home to our solar system, might be a host to tens of thousands of the black holes.

Above, a rendering showing Sagittarius A* surrounded by a cloud of dust and gas within black holes. Credit Columbia University in the City of New York

The discovery could help astronomers better understand the space-time ripples, called gravitational waves.

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Chuck Hailey, an astrophysicist at Columbia University, said:

“This is just kind of astonishing that you could have a prediction for such a large number of objects and not find any evidence for them.

So we’re looking at the very, very, very center of our galaxy. It’s a place that’s filled with a huge amount of gas and dust, and it’s jammed with a huge number of stars.

I find black holes really cool. Finding large numbers of black holes is just really neat because it’s just a larger population to study. These are really exotic objects. The more that you can have of them, the more fun you can have studying them.”

The center of the Milky Way, with the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. Credit NASA